1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for providing sufficient monitoring-information for a practical use efficiently while controlling a consumption of resources.
2) Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a server apparatus and the like, which is required to operate stably, acquires an operation state, such as a central processing unit (CPU) usage ratio and a memory usage ratio, and provides a system administrator with the operation state acquired by, for example, graphically representing the operation state in time series.
For example, a technique is disclosed in Fujitsu Kabushiki Kaisha, “ServerView 3.3”, [online], [searched Dec. 13, 2004]. Internet http://www.fmworld.net/bitz/primergy/serverview/, with which a server apparatus acquires an operation state of main components constituting the server apparatus and transmits the operation state to a monitoring terminal connected via a network, and the monitoring terminal monitors the operation state of the server apparatus by graphically representing the operation state received. A method of calculating a usage ratio of a CPU by adjusting fluctuation in an instantaneous usage ratio of the CPU is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-347905.
However, even with the conventional techniques, it is not easy to control consumption of resources involved in monitoring efficiently. Server apparatuses in recent years often include a large number of CPUs and a large number of storage devices. Thus, the number of components, which are monitoring objects, tends to increase. Therefore, a large storage area is consumed simply by accumulating acquired operation information.
For example, when a usage ratio of a virtual volume in a storage device is monitored at a monitoring interval of 1 second in a server apparatus, even if an amount of operation information is 1 byte for performing monitoring once, a storage area of 1000 bytes is usually required to calculate an average usage ratio in a monitoring period of 1000 seconds. Moreover, a required storage area increases in proportion to an increase in the virtual volume that is a monitoring object. Resources of the server apparatus should be used for essential job processing. If the resources are consumed for operation monitoring excessively, a stable operation is undesirably hindered.
On the other hand, in order to control consumption of the storage area of the server apparatus, it is also conceivable that the server apparatus transmits acquired operation information to a monitoring apparatus as occasion arises and the monitoring terminal calculates an average value and the like. However, this simply shifts an apparatus that consumes a storage area and does not solve the consumption of resources involved in monitoring.
Therefore, it is important to find how to realize a server apparatus that can provide monitoring information sufficient for a practical use efficiently while controlling resource consumption involved in system monitoring. The same holds true for a monitoring-information providing apparatus that acquires an operation state of a monitoring object and provides monitoring information.